


The Liar, The Honest

by she_writes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Next Generation, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/she_writes/pseuds/she_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a way, Victoire supposes that Teddy has always been hers. Sometimes she thinks that she knows him better than she knows herself, this beautiful contradiction of a boy.<br/>In a way, Teddy knows that Victoire has always been his. Who else would stand in the wings to remind her that she is neither the queen of the universe, nor the monster that she claims to be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. May 25, 2014: Part I

In a way, Victoire supposes that Teddy has always been hers. She remembers, almost as easily as she remembers being sorted, the day when her grandmother practically gave her the boy.

She hadn’t always been fond of Teddy. Of course, it was probably worth mentioning that that stage of her life had ended around the time that Victoire had learned how to read. The only reason she’d initially despised the boy had been that he’d been a threat. She was supposed to be the oldest. She was supposed to be the one that everyone doted on. Babies were great and all, but Victoire had been more interesting. Babies could only hold one’s attention for so long, couldn’t they? None of her younger cousins had ever been able to keep up with the little blonde fairy of a child during that time in her life. Victoire had had her family wrapped around her chubby little finger.

She still did in a way, although not to the same degree as her aunts had just kept giving her more and more cousins. Victoire would always hold the special title of first though. Teddy was practically family though. As her uncle’s godchild, he’d grown up with the Weasley extended clan. And then there was the speech from Nana that she would never be able to forget.

“Victoire, my darling, you’re going to have to start being nicer to poor Teddy. He hasn’t had it as good as you have in life. You’ve got a loving mother and father, uncles and aunts, Grandad and I. You’ve got everything a little girl could ever hope for.” Nana had begun. Victoire had been sat on her lap, gazing up at her grandmother with a look of fascination and slight annoyance on her face. She’d just pushed Teddy over in the sandbox, hadn’t she? He’d wanted the blue shovel, which she’d never expressed any interest in, but once he’d wanted it, well, she’d just had to have it, hadn’t she? “You know he hasn’t got his mum or dad. The only family he has are his gran and your Uncle Harry. We don’t have much in the Weasley family, but what we do, we always share with those who need it more than us. Teddy is the closest in age to you as well. I’m certain the two of you can be great friends if you give him a chance.”

Nana had never been her favorite in the family. It was Grandad that Victoire could get away with murder with. Nana had always had too high of expectations, Victoire felt. Still, Molly Weasley was not to be crossed. Even at four years old, Victoire had known to listen to whatever her grandmother had to say. Nana had been on to something too, of course. You listened to Nana partially because you knew that she was always going to be right in the end.

And so Teddy had become hers. Victoire had gone back outside and had offered Teddy a cookie as an apology. He’d given her a daisy in return, and while she would never admit it to anyone, Victoire still had it pressed between the pages of her copy of _Hogwarts, A History_. It had been her book of choice as a little girl because it was massive and she had had absolutely no interest in it. Only Aunt Hermione would think that it was appropriate to give each of her nieces and nephews a copy of the book when they were born. It hadn’t contained any pictures, so it had quickly become Victoire’s favorite hiding place for little trinkets that could fit between the pages. Even now that she was at school, well, it wasn’t like anyone other than Aunt Hermione had ever read the tome.

Aunt Hermione and Teddy. She tolerated history, but he loved it. Not the class, of course. No one could tolerate the never-ending mumbled drone of Professor Binns, not even Teddy Lupin. She had never seen what he was like in the class, being two years below him, but Victoire could picture it almost as easily as she could remember Nana’s speech.

Teddy favored aisle seats in the back of the room, as he claimed they gave him the most room for his seemingly endless legs. Sometimes he seemed more like a beanpole than a boy, all lanky awkward limbs that he tended to have about as much control over as a puppy or a baby giraffe. He’d sit there in the perfect seat, bent over some history book he’d gotten his hands on. Aunt Hermione fed his addiction. She was his favorite in the family. If Victoire ever lost Teddy at a family gathering, she always knew to check with Aunt Hermione first. Normally she found the pair of them in a corner together, Aunt Hermione with one of her most genuine smiles on her lips, and Teddy with his head bent slightly and his arms moving at a wild pace as he frantically talked with his hands as he always did when he got excited. Sometimes Victoire thought that she knew Teddy better than she knew herself.

In class he’d be bent over a book, scribbling notes in the margins in his impossibly illegible handwriting. That was Aunt Hermione’s one issue with the boy. She’d grown to learn how to cypher his writing as if it was a foreign language, just the way that Victoire had. Perhaps that was the reason why she did so well in Ancient Runes. That and the fact that both of her parents worked for Gringotts. Victoire had grown up decoding mysterious symbols. Occasionally, Teddy would ruffle a hand through his hair. He was left-handed, but he used his right when he was deep in thought. It kept his left free for writing and page turning. He’d never told Victoire this. It was just yet another thing that she had picked up over the years, never commenting on or questioning, but just expecting the same way she expected the sun to rise every morning.

He was running his right hand through his hair right now, puppy dog brown eyes alert and locked on the scene unfolding before them. Victoire catches a whiff of lavender, the scent of his shampoo. Teddy has gotten grief from plenty of people for using it, until he tells them that he thinks he has a faint memory of his mother smelling like lavender. That always shuts them up. That’s one of the perks of living in this day and age, isn’t it? Everyone has at least one thing that they can get away with that no one else will ever dare question, because they’re all a little damaged, aren’t they?

These are the thoughts that are passing through Victoire’s mind as she sits beside Teddy at her aunt and uncle’s wedding. It took them two children and more than a few years, but Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron are finally getting married. She always thinks of them that way, with Aunt Hermione taking the lead, because that was how they were. Aunt Hermione was always the one in charge, no matter how hard Uncle Ron might try to argue otherwise. Although most of her aunts had gotten their titles by marriage rather than birth, there was a reason that they had all become Weasleys. Her uncles had been trained by Nana to be used to being loved by strong women who ruled over every aspect of their lives with an iron fist. Her girl cousins were turning out the same way. Rose was only eight, but Victoire had already seen the girl go to smack some sense into her little brother more than a few times. Hell, she’d even seen the girl berate James, despite the fact that he was older than her. Rose was certainly her mother’s daughter.

Teddy is downright mesmerized, as she expected. Of course he would be, it was Aunt Hermione’s wedding. His hero looked like the queen that she really was standing up at the altar. She wasn’t going to take the Weasley name, figuring that everyone already knew who she was and identified her as being Hermione Granger. Her children had the Weasley name, which was enough to satisfy Nana. Besides, this was Aunt Hermione. Nana had always been right about her; today was the final proof of that.

Victoire has a love-hate relationship with weddings for the same reason. On one hand, they give her the chance to dress up. She can be the little fairy of a girl that she was when she was tiny. Her Veela blood is diluted, but no one ever dares to deny that Victoire is beautiful. She adores being adored. At the same time, weddings are someone else’s big day. No matter how much she wants to be the center of attention, she has to remind herself that all eyes should not be on her.

There are flowers in her hair though, and her dress is such a pale pink that it’s almost white. Teddy’s hair has settled into a shade of magenta, the romantic. It gravitates towards the reds and pinks when he is feeling particularly strong emotions, typically pleasure or anger. Sorrow makes him a mousey shade of brown. Victoire has overheard the adults say before that it isn’t all that different from the color his father’s hair was. She always wonders if Teddy has ever thought about that. Was it actually something that he tried to do, or was it just something that his body had come up with on his own? Either way, it fascinates her how his hair is his strongest connection to both of his parents.

It was going to be a good summer, wasn’t it? All signs indicated towards that, with the summer beginning with a wedding, and the Quidditch World Cup happening in a matter of weeks. She’s never been interested in playing, but Victoire loves to watch. It means being a part of something.

Teddy plays. Somehow he is like poetry in motion on a broom, as opposed to his graceless self when he has two feet on the ground. Equally amusing, he is a Beater for the Ravenclaw team, while off the pitch, Victoire is positive that he couldn’t hurt a fly. He’d tried out for chaser initially, but somehow the team’s captain had just known that he was meant for something else.

The wedding is almost over now. It was lovely, but Victoire doesn’t have much patience for the seemingly endless repetition of vows. Too much relies upon their words, and she values actions more than words. And so, she chooses to use her actions rather than her words to speak. As everyone’s attention is locked on the bride and groom sharing their first of doubtless many kisses as husband and wife, Victoire reaches up to place a kiss of her own upon Teddy Lupin’s lips.


	2. May 25, 2014: Part II

In a way, Teddy knows that Victoire has always been his. There are plenty of unwritten rules that come along with being a Weasley, little unspoken understandings, and this is the most obvious of them all, in Teddy’s eyes. It’s been Victoire and Teddy for almost as long as the boy can remember. Ever since that day when Victoire pushed him over in the sandbox over that shovel, they’ve been the imperfect pair.

He’s as tall as she is tiny. Of course, Teddy has had two more years in which to grow than Victoire, but they both know that she did not inherit the tall Weasley genes. Victoire got the short and stocky end of the Weasley stick, although the Veela in her has done something wonderful with that. While other Weasleys of that variety do fit the stocky descriptor, Teddy would never dare to call Victoire that. She’s only fourteen, but she’s curvy. Teddy knows that all of her uncles have been talking about just how much of a looker Victoire is becoming, as if they ever expected anything less from the daughter of Fleur Delacour. Perhaps that’s why everyone has always been okay with Victoire being his. Uncle Bill, as he has always insisted upon being called, seems to trust Teddy with his daughter.

Not that Uncle Bill would ever have any reason not to. Teddy Lupin is a boy that has been raised predominantly by his grandmother, and accordingly, he has the same sort of manners that would make an old woman beam with pride. Victoire teases him for pulling her chair out for her every chance that he gets, and while Teddy’s cheeks flush and his hair turns the color of macaroni, he would never so much as consider giving up that habit. He would pull out her chair and hold the door open for Victoire until the day that he died. He knows that people think of him as being somewhat of a bad boy, but he has never understood that label. Not that he rejects it, of course. Every boy wants to be a bad boy deep down, even if that boy loves his grandmother and the socks she knits him that always have little moons on them.

He supposes that it has to do with how he looks, although that was never intentional. He can change it with a scrunch of his nose, but Teddy looks the way that he does out of comfort rather than any grand scheme. The sides of his hair are cut close to his scalp because it’s a look that he’s grown used to sporting. If anyone is at fault for it, it would be Victoire, since she was the one who dared him to try the cut when he was fourteen. His gran had looked at him like he’d lost his mind when he’d first shown her, but she hadn’t said anything. That was one of the perks of being a gran’s boy, wasn’t it? Sometimes Teddy was a little bit of an idiot teenage boy, but then he hugged his gran every day that he was home, and sent her weekly updates on how his classes were going. Andromeda Tonks knew that no matter how rebellious her grandson might look, at the end of the day the puppy of a boy inside could never match whatever vibe the exterior gave off.

Victoire was also responsible for the dragon tooth earing he sported the previous summer. Teddy can still hardly believe that she managed to talk him into that one. She’d teased him for being a wimp, had questioned how he could possibly handle being a beater when he cringed at having a needle stabbed through his earlobe. They’d done this sitting on the floor of her room. Her father had laughed at the pair of them when he’d seen what they’d done, one of those deep belly laughs that Teddy associated with Bill Weasley. Uncle Bill had told Teddy that he was welcome to stay the night if Gran had needed some time to cool down. She’d looked at him like he’d lost his mind again, but the earing had been out before Teddy had gone back to school, and they’d never spoken of it.

She was able to talk him into far too many things, but then again, Victoire was a Weasley. Sometimes Teddy felt that it was her world, and he just lived in it. He was just along for the ride that was living in close proximity to Victoire. It wasn’t like she was always like that either. Maybe some people thought that of her, but Teddy knew better.

He’d seen her be soft and cautious around the baby birds that she nursed back to health at Shell Cottage. He’d seen her cry a few times when she ultimately had not been able to save them. Teddy knew that at the end of the day, Victoire was human. She was just as cracked and flawed as everyone else, but she danced so quickly through life that not many people were able to see those imperfections. He reckoned that she didn’t want them to be seen. With him though, she had never gotten that chance, even if she had wanted it.  
Teddy thinks of Victoire as one of her knees bumps against his. She sits to his left, with Louis on the other side of her. He knows that her brother, despite being the youngest, is seated in the middle of the three siblings for a reason. Victoire and Dominique have always butted heads, but both are trying to be on their best behavior today in honor of the occasion.

Teddy loves weddings. He doesn’t talk about this much, because he knows that everyone will tease him for being a romantic. It’s construed to be somewhat of a bad thing, but he doesn’t see it that way. What’s so bad about wanting to show the world that you had found the sort of love that was forever? Or until death, at least. He knows that everyone is supposed to look at the bride when she walks into the room, but Teddy always finds himself looking at the groom. He’ll see how incredible the bride looks eventually, but the moment that he wants to remember forever is how her soon-to-be husband reacts to that incredibleness. Teddy likes to see the overwhelming love and amazement that always light up the groom’s eyes. He wants to be able to look at a woman that way one day.

This isn’t just any wedding either. This one has been different from the start. Hermione Granger has to be one of his favorites in the Weasley clan. Of course, Uncle Harry is special to Teddy as his godfather, and his connection to the family. He’s fairly certain that even if his dad hadn’t made Harry godfather, Molly Weasley would have taken him in anyways. She’s his second grandmother, really. Gran had only had a daughter, so she’d started going to Aunt Molly early on for advice on how to raise Teddy. No one knew what it was like to raise boys better than Molly Weasley did. So yes, Teddy is especially fond of Uncle Harry and Aunt Molly. Hermione though, she’s something else. They have a bond that isn’t as to be expected. Anyone who took the time to really get to know Teddy would understand though.

His relationships with the other two are based upon the relationship that they have. With Hermione though, Teddy bonded with her quickly because somehow she’d managed early on to see who he was. He wouldn’t call her the big sister he’d never had. No, that wasn’t quite right. Uncle Harry’s kids, they were the ones who were most like his siblings. James gave Teddy just as much grief as he gave Albus and Lily. No, Hermione was more of a mentor to Teddy. Perhaps a sort of soul mate, if you believed in that sort of thing. Not in a romantic way, of course. He loved the woman deeply, but not as anything other than a kindred spirit. He didn’t refer to her as being an aunt, but she was still practically family to him.

With Teddy, Hermione finally had someone who loved learning as much as she did. She finally had someone who appreciated Hogwarts, A History. Teddy would always remember the look of pride on her face when he’d first shown her his incredibly annotated copy. That pride had driven him to steal Victoire’s copy in order to put notes that he thought would be helpful in it for her. Victoire seemed to think that the book was useful, but not in the same way that Teddy did. He’d found scraps of paper with notes on them in it, a muggle bank note or two, and a rather flat daisy. He assumed it was all important to Victoire for some reason or another, but Teddy failed to understand why. She’d never said anything about his annotations, which gave him the terrible feeling that she hadn’t cracked the book open since he’d written them around three years ago.

Hermione and Ron had two children together, which made the look of love in the man’s eyes different than that of a man who hadn’t had quite as much time with his wife already, but it was still there. Maybe there was more love present, because he had had longer to love her for. At Teddy’s wedding, he was going to have a four tier chocolate cake. He wanted there to be lavender in all of the bouquets, maybe out on the tables during the reception as well. Gold and silver would be the colors. He would have wanted it to be on a full moon if it hadn’t been for the fact that he never felt quite right during that time. He hadn’t inherited that trait from his father, but still, being half-werewolf made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when the moon was full, and his stomach churned the same way it did when he ate too much for dinner.

He ruffles a hand through his hair as he finds himself losing himself in wedding plans again. What is he thinking? He’s a sixteen year old boy who doesn’t even have a girlfriend. This is not what sixteen year old boys are meant to do. There are plenty of girls at Hogwarts that would gladly be his girlfriend, Teddy knows that. He’d not oblivious, and he likes to think that thanks to being raised by his gran, he’s better than most boys his age at understanding women. They really aren’t that complicated if you actually put some thought into things. Maybe this will be the year that Teddy gets a girlfriend. While Victoire lives for attention, Teddy isn’t so sure. He knows that these girls are all chasing after him because they believe that he’s someone that he simply isn’t. They want him to be the bad boy of their dreams with his blue hair, and his questionable sense of fashion.

What they don’t know is that his hair is blue when he’s calm. The shade of it varies based upon just how content he is. It gets downright navy when he’s deep in thought, which it would probably be now if he wasn’t at a wedding and overwhelmed by sentiment. They don’t know that he wears those old, vaguely sweaters not because he thinks that they look cool, but because they belonged to his father. They certainly don’t know that all of those hand-me-downs have been charmed to last, a joint effort on the parts of Gran and Aunt Molly after Teddy once cried for hours upon realizing that he’d made a hole in a mustard colored sweater that he’d once seen his father wear in a photograph.

He’s just as much Victoire’s as she is his. It isn’t like they’re anything like how people expect friends to be, but at the same time, he can’t imagine life without her. They don’t have to talk, because they have lost sight of where one of them ends and the other begins. Teddy doesn’t think that Victoire knows him better than he knows himself, only because he feels like he is much better acquainted with himself than most people are with themselves. She might know him better than she knows herself though, and he certainly knows her better than she knows herself.

No one can ever truly know Victoire though, not even Teddy. Certainly not Teddy, he thinks to himself, as he realizes that she has been inspired by her aunt and uncle, and has decided that this moment is the perfect time to kiss him.


End file.
